Aulman twisted his mustache thoughtfully. “Your problem is that you’re claiming a piece of someone else’s pie. All the other consulates will immediately start digging around to find out who you really are and what you’re really up to. I’ll give you some advice: stay away from passports and deal in liquor instead.”

Don Fernando slapped his thighs. “You’re absolutely right!”

“What do you mean?” Nina frowned.

“The customs here take a duty of ninety-five dollars for a crate of champagne,” Aulman explained. “But consulates have the right to purchase alcohol duty-free—for social events, of course. If you were to order ten crates, you’d be able to make a considerable mark up.”

“Surely the customs people will get suspicious,” Nina said. “It’ll be hard for a small consulate to justify ten crates of champagne, even in a month.”

“If it was only you and your staff drinking it, no doubt. But if the Czechoslovak Consul was arranging small receptions for important personages, then no one would start counting exactly how many bottles his guests have got through.”

“I’ll sort out the champagne business,” Don Fernando said, “but the parties and receptions will be your domain, ma’am. Do we have a deal?”

Nina was completely taken aback; she never dreamed that events could take such a sudden and dramatic turn.

“How am I going to arrange the parties?” she asked. “I don’t know anyone. No one would come.”

Aulman showed her a framed photograph standing on his desk. It was an image of a pretty blond woman with dimples on her cheeks.

“I’ll introduce you to my wife, Tamara. She’ll figure everything out.”

They agreed they would all have shares in the business. Nina’s job would be to negotiate with Jiří and arrange the ceremonial side of things, the Don would establish relations with the local liquor dealers, and Aulman would provide the documents and connections with the Chinese civil service and bureaucracy.

Out on the street, Don Fernando blew a kiss to the sky. “I owe you one, Holy Virgin!” Then he turned to Nina. “You have no idea how lucky we are that Aulman decided to join us. With him and his connections, we risk nothing. What’s more, he has very deep pockets.”

“Then what does he need us for?” Nina asked. “If he’s so rich, a few hundred dollars more or less won’t make any difference to him.”

“It’s all because of his wife. She used to be the first grand lady of Shanghai, but a year ago she fell from her horse and broke her spine. She’s bored to death sitting at home, and it would appear Aulman has decided to keep her busy and entertained with your scam. His wife loves dressing-up and organizing social events. Besides Tamara is Russian, so you’ll have much in common.”

“Have you ever meet her?” Nina asked. “What’s she like?”

“Oh, she’s a great woman,” Don Fernando said reverently. “Can you imagine it, a woman paralyzed from the waist down, and yet her husband is so in love with her that he doesn’t even go to brothels.”

4

Nina reached the Aulmans’ house at seven in the evening. A quiet servant appeared at the gate and led her down the red sand-dusted pathway. The heat of the day wreathed the lawn in steam, and the birds squabbled in their roosts for the night.

Nina felt nervous. What if Tamara didn’t take a liking to her? Jiří had been right when he had said that Nina often put people off. Nobody wants to be around a woman who has obviously lost her moral bearing and has no concept of right and wrong.

If you want to make friends and charm people, Nina told herself, you have to be witty and carefree. Be amusing and try not to offend anyone.

Jiří had screamed his head off when she informed him about her plans to make him a fake consul.

“You’re going to rake off all the cash,” he cried, “but if anything happens, it’ll be me who goes to jail.”

Nina had told him that if he didn’t agree, he could start packing. It had been blackmail, pure and simple—where could he go? Who needed a musician with missing fingers?

“You give me no choice,” he had said, sullenly avoiding her eyes. “I’ll be your consul.”

But I have no choice either, she told herself for the hundredth time.

The wide windows of the Aulmans’ house were open, and behind the mosquito nets, Nina could see a brightly lit room with a grand piano, bookcases, and low oriental-style sofas.

Three boys in scout uniforms were building a fortress on the carpet.

“What are you doing?” yelled one in English. “Can’t you see that’s meant for the roof? It’ll all fall down now because of you.”

“It won’t! Mom, tell him!”

Under the grand piano a pair of elegant Russian borzoi wolfhounds were gnawing at either end of a huge bone.

The servant showed Nina into the house. “This way, please.” He bowed, letting her into the room.

Tamara was sitting in an armchair, propped up with embroidered pillows. Small, brightly colored parakeets were fluttering about in their cages on each side of her.

“Nina Vasilievna? Nice to meet you!” Tamara said, greeting her guest by her patronymic in the traditional, respectful way.

“And what’s your patronymic?” Nina asked, returning the courtesy.

“Please just call me by my first name,” Tamara replied. “I’m so used to it here—I've become completely shanghaied.”

Her hair was not blond but white, and her young face looked emaciated; the dimples on her cheeks were gone. Tamara’s blue silk dress emphasized her turquoise eyes, and her wrist was adorned with a string of pearls that looked very expensive.

“Go along and play outside,” Tamara told the boys. “Roger, would you mind taking the dogs out with you as well? They’ve already made a mess of the carpet. Would you like some coffee, Nina Vasilievna?”

Tamara asked lots of questions, and Nina told her all about herself in much the same way as Klim used to—making light of herself and her circumstances. One would have thought there had been no misfortune in her life, just a series of funny adventures. Had she fled the length of Russia from the Bolsheviks? Oh yes, it had been an unforgettable trip! All the way, Nina had been on a diet of bread and water—quite the rage among refugees at that time. And as for the dirt, well, they do say that taking a mud bath is very good for the complexion. She had shared her cattle truck with the cream of society: professors from Moscow University, officers from the General Staff, opera singers, and leading members of the nobility. Everyone had been very kind, crushing the lice from each other’s bodies and cursing the revolution in the politest and the most cultured way.

Tamara was thrilled with Nina’s story. She had arrived in China twenty years previously, with her father, who had a job with the Russian-Chinese Bank, and now she only had a very vague idea about what was going on in Russia.

“Do you speak English?” Tamara asked.

“A little,” Nina admitted. “But my Russian accent is a real handicap.”

“You must think of it as a cute little quirk that makes you stand out from the crowd. My friends are fine with my accent.”

Well, they would be, wouldn’t they? Nina thought. If you lived in a luxurious mansion and had a husband like Tony Aulman, you’d be accepted if you had three heads and spoke Martian with a forked tongue.

“Tony told me about your venture,” Tamara said. “We have a house near the race course, and we can rent it to you for a nominal fee. There’s plenty of room there for the balls.”

“What do you mean by ‘balls’?” Nina asked, surprised. “I was thinking that we’d mainly be organizing small receptions.”

“It’s much more interesting to play big,” Tamara replied with a smile. “While I was listening to you, I came up with a great idea. We can introduce you as a Russian countess, who has come from Europe to visit her cousin, the Czechoslovak Consul. To honor your arrival, you’ll arrange a fancy dress masquerade, and the theme shall be: High Society in One Hundred Years Time. I read in the newspaper that somebody has brought a new material to Shanghai, called ‘cellophane,’ all the way from Switzerland. We could use it for futuristic costumes. I’ll foot the expenses and you’ll make a start on your champagne sales. Now all we have to decide upon is the guest list.”

Tamara took a pencil and notebook from the table next to her armchair and began to write down some names.

“The Smiths are out of the question,” she stated matter-of-factly. “They’re good friends with the British Consul, and we should steer clear of officials for the time being. We’d be wiser to invite the McGraths. They’re not interested in politics at all.” She looked up at Nina and smiled playfully. “Lucille McGrath claims to be my best friend, but I haven’t seen her here for two months. I think she needs to be taught a lesson or two.”

Nina realized that Tamara was very angry with her friends. She was no longer on their guest lists, and they had started to visit her less and less. Apparently, Tamara had decided that she could be a social lioness again through Nina, and at the same time get back at her disloyal friends by fooling them into thinking that a couple of refugee con artists were European aristocrats.

Nina had secretly hoped that she and Tamara would become soul mates, but that was out of the question. Tony Aulman was hiring Nina in order to divert and cheer up his wife.

I have no other choice, Nina repeated to herself. My main goal now is to get my foot in the door, and then we'll see how things turn out.

5

As soon as Tony Aulman got back from work, dinner was served. It turned out to be a boisterous and fun affair. Tamara showed the boys how to catapult peas with their spoons and make ballet dancers’ legs out of their napkins. Tony had almost lost his voice after a three-hour deposition at the court, but he ate with a huge appetite and laughed more than anyone at the antics around him. He was in high spirits and recounted the day’s case with great humor.

The police had raided a warehouse packed with counterfeit records that had been worth over twenty thousand dollars. Tony explained that the Chinese would forge and illegally copy practically every product that had ever been advertised in the press, from cough medicine to sheets of music. He was representing the interests of the affected companies and had hired several sleuths to snoop around the Chinese warehouses. Then Aulman would either settle the case in his client’s favor, with a big payout, or demand the destruction of the fake goods.

“How can you tell a legal copy from an illegal one?” Nina asked.

“We look at the labels,” Tony explained. “The Chinese typesetters don’t speak any foreign languages and often they put the letters upside down or mix up the word order. Another giveaway is a lack of spaces between words or punctuation marks. When my sleuths find a forged item in a store, they will pose as a big wholesaler and discover who the manufacturer is via the entire chain of suppliers.”

“Why don’t the police carry out the investigation?”

Tony and Tamara exchanged knowing glances and laughed.

“Because the purpose of holding any official position in China,” said Tamara, “is to provide for yourself, not the public. If you don’t give the police a bribe, they won’t lift a finger for you.”

“What if the counterfeiters provide them with an even bigger bribe?”

“In that case, we ask Don Fernando to intervene,” said Tony. “He knows how to resolve that sort of issue.”

Nina recalled Fernando’s innuendoes at the funeral earlier that week. So that was why Aulman was friends with a murderer and a gangster.

Throughout the entire evening she observed Tony closely. It was clear that he really adored his wife and that his entertaining stories were largely meant for Tamara’s amusement. He didn’t wait for the servants to pour her orange juice, preferring to do it himself, and assiduously made sure that she wouldn’t get cold sitting in a draft. For the first time in her life, Nina was looking at a man who was successful, strong, and wealthy and utterly loved a woman regardless of her health and beauty. The impression was strange and delightful.

When the maid announced the arrival of the taxi, Tony accompanied Nina to the porch. It was dark outside, and the servants had lit a garland of Chinese lanterns along the driveway.

“Thank you,” Tony said quietly, shaking Nina’s hand. “I’m so glad Tamara has met you. I haven’t seen her so cheerful for a long time.”